Susie Bright's Journal

My Halloween Musical Gift to You!

via www.youtube.com

  Tom Waits on "Fernwood 2Night," circa 1977.

One day I hope to use every single one of Tom's lines that he cuts loose in this after-piano interview. 

I will start tonight!

Have a very spooky little evening...

I'll Be Reading My Favorite Judy Grahn Poem Tonight, in San Francisco

  

 

Also showcasing performances inspired by Judy’s writing...

“To The Mother Of All Bowls”

   choreographed and performed by Anne Bluethenthal and Dancers

“The Psychoanalysis of Edward the Dyke”

   presented by Susie Bright

Staged excerpt from The Queen of Swords

   directed by playwright and actress Jovelyn Richards

Reading from “A Woman Is Talking To Death”

   read by performance poet Daphne Gottlieb  

       

And screening footage from...

Poomaram (A Flowering Tree), inspired by“Bread, Blood, & Roses”

   written and directed by Indian filmmaker Vipin Vijay

1976 rendition of “A Mock Interrogation”

   performed by The Wallflower Order, introduction by Krissy Keefer       

  

Newly published book The Judy Grahn Reader will be available for discounted purchase,

and book signing will follow program.

 

In the spirit of the event, costumes are encouraged! Judy will award a prize for the best one!

 

 

The Judy Grahn All Hallows' Eve Extravaganza

October 30, 2009

6:30pm Reception with light buffet

7:15pm Program begins

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th Street, at Mission

San Francisco, CA 94110

 

Free Event

Call 415-826-1300 for further info

Susie's Review of "The Erotic City" in SF Chronicle

"Every San Francisco neighborhood has two characters at each other's throats.

"The "Tweedledums" are the cranks - you see them glaring at your T-shirt from their second-story window. They scream "Pervert!" at two women pushing a stroller down the street; they scold the Catholic schoolgirls to pull their skirts down. 

"Stuffed shirts? They're zealots, and they've had Dianne Feinstein on speed-dial since 1977 to report every affront. Their motto: "Whatever happened to the decent San Francisco, the one where Grandpa could walk down the street without a queer or a hooker blemishing his view?"

"Grandpa was probably cross-dressing at Finocchio's, but we'll save that story for another day..."

 read the rest at: www.sfgate.com

How Erotica Causes Better Car Crashes

On my audio show today:

 How Erotic Audiobooks Nearly Caused Multiple Collisions
 

Listen to an excerpt: Download Pf_suzy_091023_sample
 

Also, on today's episode: my doubts about "the woman who can't stop orgasming"— and a lesbian listener who wonders why her girlfriend won't kiss her from head to toe.

 

Photo Credit: Holly Hunter and James Spader in David Cronenberg's Crash.

Our Marketing Plan : The Publisher Advises a New Author

I’ve attached a list of celebrities we think would be great to blurb your book, so find out their numbers and call them up. Be sure to do all this by Monday, because Sales Conference starts Tuesday. We come back Friday and then immediately on Saturday (!) all of editorial (Janet, plus probably Michelle, her assistant) and I go to the Frankfurt Book Fair for a week. During that time the office will be closed, although to help cover the costs of the Germany trip it will actually be sublet to the John Lindsay Elementary School P.T.A. as a rehearsal space for this year’s fund-raiser production of “The Music Man.” I’m told that this was one of the things that Jason didn’t understand and which contributed to his “condition.”

read the rest via www.newyorker.com

Yes, this is a satire. by Ellis Weiner. But it's so close to the truth that I have tears running down my face in laughter. Laughter, I tell you!

If You Breastfeed, You Cannot Fake It

Today on my IBWSB audio show, I talk about the reality of sex during pregnancy and in the wee, wee hours after childbirth...

Listen to excerpt: Lactation_orgasm_091016_sample

 Also on this episode, "The Psychoanalysis of Edward the Dyke" (I'll be reading it live, at Judy Grahn's Halloween event on October 30!).

And... in my mailbag, a husband warns his wife that she better not masturbate.

You can hear the whole show here. 

And if you want to buy a thrifty subscription to my show, it's mere pennies a show...special deal here.

The (Pubic) Shaving Wars

There was a time when a woman couldn't hope to succeed in romance without a hooped skirt... but now her pubic hair coiffure raises the bar higher. 

Listen here: Download Pf_suzy_091009_sample

I am SO old that I remember when a full bush was considered the hottest, most desirable female sexual image possible. I have piles of 1970s Playboy magazines to prove it. —And postage stamps were six cents, child! 

Also on this show, we talk about the Abstinence Pork Barrel, and a woman who needs urgent clit information in the next five minutes. The entire episode is here.

  

Photo Credit: Tee Corrinne, from her famous ISIS series, hand-printed double negative. 

I remember asking her in the 80s, when I was 23, when I was about to publish this photo for the first time. "How did you get that special silvery effect on her hair?" 

Tee laughed at me: "The special effect is that the model is 70 years old." 

You can learn more about Tee and see much more of her photography in my book, Nothing But the Girl.
 

P.S. I am not going to publish any comments nonsense about how this post is "not safe for work." Tell it to Da Vinci.

Rape Case Forces Halliburton Into the Open— But 30 Senators Vote Against It

"The [anti-rape] legislation passed the Senate with a clear majority but 30 Republican members voted against it, including the former presidential candidate John McCain. 

"Among the objections were claims that the government had no business interfering in a private contract between a company and its workers."

 read more via detailed backstory at  www.guardian.co.uk

 

"When [Jamie Leigh Jones] awoke the next morning still affected by the drug, she found her body naked and severely bruised, with lacerations to her vagina and anus, blood running down her leg, her breast implants ruptured and her pectoral muscles torn‚ which would later require reconstructive surgery. Upon walking to the rest room, she passed out again," the papers say.

"Jones was treated by a US army doctor who gave forensic evidence to company officials. She says the firm placed her under guard in a shipping container and she was released only after her father asked the US embassy to intervene. (I wonder how he even found out?) 

 "When the forensic evidence was handed to investigators two years later, crucial photographs and notes were missing.

"Jones says she identified one of the men who attacked her after he confessed, but that Halliburton/KBR prevented her from taking legal action against him or the company by pointing to a clause in her contract requiring disputes to go to arbitration.

"This year, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies that ask employees to sign away the right to sue. Ya think?
 

It passed, but it wasn't the slam dunk comic pundit Jon Stewart on the Daily Show expected. Instead the amendment received 30 nay votes all from Republicans.

 "I understand we're a divided country, some disagreements on health care. How is ANYONE against this?" Stewart asked.

 

More from the video clip on Jon Stewart's Daily Show. 
 

 

Here's the 30 Senators who think Halliburton should do whatever they want if it's in the fine print:

 

Alexander (R-TN)

Barrasso (R-WY)

Bond (R-MO)

Brownback (R-KS)

Bunning (R-KY)

Burr (R-NC)

Chambliss (R-GA)

Coburn (R-OK)

Cochran (R-MS)

Corker (R-TN)

Cornyn (R-TX)

Crapo (R-ID)

DeMint (R-SC)

Ensign (R-NV)

Enzi (R-WY)

Graham (R-SC)

Gregg (R-NH)

Inhofe (R-OK)

Isakson (R-GA)

Johanns (R-NE)

Kyl (R-AZ)

McCain (R-AZ)

McConnell (R-KY)

Risch (R-ID)

Roberts (R-KS)

Sessions (R-AL)

Shelby (R-AL)

Thune (R-SD)

Vitter (R-LA)

Wicker (R-MS)

Jason Linkins has more on the senator's "reasoning."

Each one of these senators needs to receive a bronze plaque with the following engraved memo: "How To Prevent Rape." Read it all. It's the first list I ever read that has a toehold in reality.

Maurice Sendak is My Hero Today

Newsweek: What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary? 

Maurice Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate.

via www.newsweek.com

This whole interview is delightful. Wait'll you see what he says about Mickey Mouse.

Hot Air and Prison Cash

Now that the economy is suffering, there is talk of reforming the prisons, of reviving the discredited concept of rehabilitation, of letting some prisoners out early. Some people have even mentioned doing away with the death penalty because of the exorbitant cost to the state of guaranteed appeals.

 For those of us who have endured a generation of policies intended explicitly to inflict pain, this has a surreal quality to it. After all, it was only a year ago that the state authorities were planning the next phase of prison expansion. 

Obviously, all the passionate arguments that have been made about the moral wrongs of mass incarceration, of disproportionately affected communities, of abysmal treatment and civil rights violations were just so much hot air. Only when society ran out of ready cash did prison reform become worthy of serious consideration...

via kenneth hartman at www.nytimes.com